Damned Be Thine Gods
by Gaara and his Little Panda-kun
Summary: After the initial disbelief, Jon found himself hard-pressed to actually loathe the man or abandon him as a conundrum he was unfit to solve. In fact, while not becoming outright obsessive, Jonathan was willing to admit he'd been closely studying the clown every time he appeared on the news. Pre-Scarecrow Crane and Joker-centric. Optional one-shot.


To say Jonathan Crane was interested in the antics (to put it extremely mildly) of the mass criminal known only as the Joker was the understatement to outdo all understatements. On this cold Gotham afternoon in the midst of December, Jonathan was rooted to the spot as he watched the television spitting out the news just behind the department-store window. Wrapped in a beige overcoat and toting groceries, Crane gazed on as buildings crumbled, missing persons reports were announced and strange, skewed videos, all featuring the same wrecked visage of one mysterious clown, were shown on repeat. He assumed many fanatics tried to decipher the meanings behind each one, usually too late. AS they tapped their pens and flipped frantically through thesauruses, buildings were already rigged and simply ticking down to explosion. Crane was frozen to the pavement as he listened to a morose newscaster explain the death of another man - a business manager on 52nd Street. Now, Crane connected the actual crime to its foreboding precedent; when the Joker had said, "this ain't the crucible," he had actually meant the play 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller, who also wrote 'Death of a Salesman'. The crime was heinous. The man had been gassed to death, laughing miserably into his own silence. Nobody had been able to solve the riddle. No one had been able to save him. It was terrible. It was horrifying.

Jonathan loved it. He watched the Joker cackle and chortle every night with a sort of morbid fascination. Surely this man would be caught, he thought, but he remained elusive and amorphous as a ghost, loud and yet ethereal. Crane argued that there was no way for Gotham to spit out this creature, that he was not of this world. He couldn't be, he argued, because all of his psych classes demanded that he simply disappear. He couldn't truly exist in Gotham's vacuum because the society was unfit for him. He stole money only to burn it. He would sometimes kill in a pattern and other times mass murder at will. He tore down corrupted mafias and upstanding corporations alike, and without hesitation. He apparently had no agenda except... whatever suited him. He seemed entirely impulse-driven, and as such, seemed to be a man best suited to a smaller city. And yet here he was, without goal, meandering and killing on the Gotham streets, facing the behemoth without fear and spitting in its eye. After the initial disbelief, Jon found himself hard-pressed to actually loathe the man or abandon him as a conundrum he was unfit to solve. In fact, while not becoming outright obsessive, Jonathan was willing to admit he'd been closely studying the clown every time he appeared on the news.

Crane returned to the present, releasing his subconsciously-bitten lower lip as he glanced at the man standing next to him, who had no doubt appeared while he was thinking over the Joker's latest victim. His brown trenchcoat dusted his knees, his grey slacks smoothly rumpling over shiny black shoes. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his eyes glued to the screens as he watched, a scarf sheltering his nose and lips form the biting cold. A deep brown fedora completed the ensemble.

Crane only spared him a few seconds' glance before returning to the Joker once again. This time, his lips were cracked open in a sick yellow smile, his cheeks cracked hideously down the sides. Those scars were another mystery Jonathan pondered. How could a man gain such an injury and why? Popular theory claimed it was the mafia, mainly the Falcones or the Maronis. They said he got into a bad way and so they sliced him up and left him for dead. But he returned, and took vengeance on the mafia. And because it's well-known that both gangs pretty much owned Gotham, he decided to take the entire city as collateral.

Of course, Crane didn't buy such hogwash.

"Some character, that Joker."

Crane jumped, looking back over at the gentleman. He was still watching the screens, and for one silent moment, he wondered if he hallucinated the man having spoken. But, when his eyes flicked over to Crane, he realized that he had indeed spoken to him, and was expecting a reply. "Sure," he answered, looking at the screen once more. All was silent once again before the scarfed man spoke once more.

"He's just another mob castaway. He's just Victor Zsaz on a larger scale with greasepaint."

Despite himself, Crane felt himself silently bristle at the offhanded comment. He tightened his arms around his groceries and his lips melted into a frown. "Hardly," he sneered. The man looked at him again as he continued. "You make him sound so base."

The man didn't hesitate. "You don't believe his psych analysis?" He didn't seem accusatory, but he didn't seem all that friendly either. Jonathan didn't care, apparently, because he continued to speak.

"That tripe? If you buy into his cardboard cut-out psych profile then you're just as crazy as they say **he **is." He looked back to the television. "I doubt this all started with the mafia, because he's too smart for thug work. The whole 'taking Gotham for recompense' thing is ridiculous. Nobody's that grand and stupid simultaneously. No, he wants the city for his own reasons, and the mafia sometimes interferes. When something interferes with something you want, you remove it. Obviously he spares no expense in creating his work, so maybe the consequences are stronger." He paused, then turned to the man. "What do you do for a hobby?"

"I paint."

"So what would you do if I stood in front of your unfinished painting."

"I'd move you out of the way."

"What if I was seconds away from cutting the canvas with a palette knife?"

He hesitated here. Finally, he said, very slowly, "I'd sue you."

Crane couldn't help but laugh. "Well, that was forced. Be honest. What would you do if I was about to puncture your canvas with the edge of a palette knife and tear a giant gap in it, ruining your hard work-"

"I would beat you until you bled."

Jonathan nodded, completely at ease with the dark undertones in the man's voice. "Precisely my point." With that, he returned his gaze to the screens. Silence reigned, and Crane once again returned to his thoughts. Speaking the thoughts he had on the Joker aloud was actually helpful. He partially understood his disregard for the value of human life; it simply got in the way sometimes, and was generally only useful for reaching an end and for its worth as an audience.

"So you think he regards his work as art?"

Jonathan thought on it for a moment, his brows furrowed tightly together. "Not exactly," he thought aloud, his groceries suddenly feeling heavy. He shuffled for a moment before beginning again. "He regards it as a businessman regards the plans for a merger, or an architect sees a blueprint. He views his plans as integral parts of himself, and one piece out of place is tantamount to failure; to ruin."

The statement sounded as final as it felt. Jonathan realized that the Joker was and simultaneously wasn't some random cimrinal. He had no plan and yet he valued each one more than the human life.

It made him even more dangerous than he first appeared.

"You seem to have had an epiphany."

Jonathan released his lip, looking once more at the stranger. This time, his eyes were strangely unnerving, his gaze somewhat surreal. Jonathan gripped his groceries closer to him, his fingers numb from the cold. His breath was visible in the chilled air, his eyes averted, despite his interest. "Well," he muttered, moving his arms against the brown paper bags, "I ought to be going."

Beneath his dark fedora, the stranger raised an eyebrow. "Go?" he asked, a dark undertone belying the innocence of the question. "We were having such a good conversation."

Crane could feel the hair rising on the back of his neck. This conversation had drastically changed tone. He tried to hide his response and, instead, began to walk away, saying over his shoulder, "I don't associate with fanatics; especially misinformed ones. Good day."

Crane could feel the stranger's eyes on his back, but still he walked on. He just barely caught the man's parting words, and when they finally registered, he froze entirely still.

"Well, fanatic is a bit narcissistic, but it isn't too far off the mark."

If calling him a fanatic was narcissistic, then that meant...

He whirled around, his eyes meeting only the dull grey of a near-comatose Gotham on a late December day. The the only thing missing was the stranger, who was completely absent from the scene. He was gone.

He remained there a moment, stunned into place. Surely that man wasn't the Joker - just some overly-obsessed fan masquerading as him on the streets. Crane felt himself relax. Yeah, there were plenty of ways he could have gotten information on the Joker's behavioral patterns. Besides, all of his theories were dead wrong. Jonathan knew they were.

Scoffing, he turned away, walking away once more. What a silly pedestrian. Did the poor man have no life beyond impersonating criminals? Surely he needed a psych evaluation. Maybe next time he ran into him he'd offer to give him one. He laughed to himself, shuffling a hand through his pocket for his keys as he turned the corner to the street his apartment was on.

As he arrived at the door and began flipping through the keyring and fitting the correct key in the lock, he still felt a cold chill thrill through him. Try as he may, he couldn't seem to be able to will his goosebumps away.

_A/N: Ihaven'twrittenanythinginsolongsoth iskindofsuckskthxbai._

_I have been creatively stunted, which is more or less an advanced form of writer's block (don't you just hate that?). It's not that I don't know what to write, but I feel like I physically can't, and it's kind of scaring me. I wrote this by hand a few weeks ago and decided to type it up for you to see. Pardon the grammatical errors and such-I beta'd this myself, but my eye often skims over common mistakes, and I typed this in an awful hurry. This is a weird mix between the Nolanverse and the Arkham Asylum/Cityverse of Batman. I won't stick it under both, because crossovers often receive dubious amounts of attention, and I'm interested in knowing if this should be continued, kind of like 'With Whom I Only Whisper'. It's obviously open to a sequel, but it's a good enough standalone. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this._


End file.
